{"id":2249,"date":"2007-08-04T21:48:25","date_gmt":"2007-08-05T02:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2249"},"modified":"2007-08-24T21:18:31","modified_gmt":"2007-08-25T02:18:31","slug":"its-local-its-practical-and-its-benefiting-people-who-work-the-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=2249","title":{"rendered":"“It’s local, it’s practical, and it’s benefiting people who work the land.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I read about Blue Spruce Farms<\/a> in February ’05<\/a>, the year it “began producing electricity by burning waste methane gas for CVPS Cow Power(TM), (NYSE: CV<\/a> – News<\/a>) a first-in-the nation program directly linking CVPS customers, farm generation and the environment<\/em>.” The title of this post is a quote from Steve Costello, the dairy’s spokesperson.<\/p>\n

A video report on the Vermont energy producer posted 23 May 2007:
\nECO BIZ – BLUE SPRUCE: COW POWER<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

And this describes an approach to ethanol production that hopefully will become a model for other producers.<\/p>\n

First-of-its-kind ethanol plant goes on-line in Nebraska
\nby Peter Shinn, Brownfield Network, 29 June 2007<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The E3 Biofuels Genesis Plant, billed as the first ethanol facility of its kind in the world, held its grand opening in Mead, Nebraska, Thursday to a packed house that included dozens of media and Governor Dave Heineman. There’s little question that the plant is unique. But does it represent the future of U.S. ethanol production?<\/p>\n

The Genesis Plant is co-located with a cattle feedlot. The manure from that feedlot is used to fuel an anaerobic digester, which produces biogas that powers the ethanol plant. Through that process, the manure is converted into an injectable ammonia fertilizer. High-protein co-products from the plant are fed back to the cattle, creating a closed-loop system that generates ethanol without using any fossil fuels. At the same time, because manure from the feedlot is continually removed to fuel the digester, a primary source of groundwater pollution is eliminated.<\/p>\n

E3 Biofuels CEO Dennis Langley, in remarks to the assembled crowd, said the system is highly energy-efficient, using just one BTU of energy to produce more than 49 BTUs. That, Langley said, compared to a typical petroleum refinery’s energy conversion rate of 1-to-3 and a typical ethanol plant’s energy conversion rate of 1-to-2.5. Later, Langley told Brownfield there are around 2,000 livestock facilities around the country well-suited to the Genesis plant model.<\/p>\n

“If you did that to 150 of them, you would have about the equivalent of the essential ethanol production of the U.S. right now,” Langley said. “So we’re scratching the surface.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For his part, Heineman said there’s no doubt closed-loop facilities like the Genesis plant represent the future of U.S. ethanol production. But he said at present, more traditional ethanol plants will continue to dominate the landscape.<\/p>\n

“For the immediate future, ethanol is going to be corn-based,” Heineman said. “But we need continued innovation, continued research and what Dennis is doing here, again, is taking us to another level.”<\/p>\n

Indeed, for all its advances, efficiencies and environmental advantages, the Genesis facility still uses corn as its ethanol feedstock. And producer Bob Bartek, President of the local Saunders County Corn Growers Association, told Brownfield area farmers will welcome the improved basis the plant is bound to bring.<\/p>\n

“We got some great prices now and we hope we can keep them,” Bartek said. “And I’m sure that this facility is going to help our basis here tremendously in this area.”<\/p>\n

E3’s Langley said after he expands the Mead facility from 25 million gallons to 50 million gallons of annual ethanol production, he plans to build at least 20 more closed-loop ethanol facilities across the Midwest. Heineman said he hopes many of them are in Nebraska.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, Heineman said Nebraska’s ethanol industry will continue to grow at a breakneck pace. According to Heineman, a new ethanol facility will begin production in Nebraska each month through the end of 2007.<\/p>\n

Related Links:<\/em>
\nE3 Biofuels<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I read about Blue Spruce Farms in February ’05, the year it “began producing electricity by burning waste methane gas for CVPS Cow Power(TM), (NYSE: CV – News) a first-in-the nation program directly linking CVPS customers, farm generation and the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-Ah","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}